It is a pitiful drawing, altogether too cheery,
but it was the middle-of-the-night and I had only my watercolor-filled pens.
I was horrified about what I’d read in the Oregonian.*yeah i know i should not be reading puter in the middle-of-the-night*They are pushing for leniency and have a “kids-will-be kids” attitude,
regarding the teenagers that tossed the firecrackers into the gorge.

NO!

I’m not on the side of the death penalty, but to write that these “children”
(oops, 15 is not quite a child…. more a minor) should not be charged
with a crime as an adult and do time because theyDIDN’T UNDERSTAND THE CONSEQUENCES is insanity?
Any one of my friends would have understood the consequences at 12, let alone 15.
We knew this was an evil, destructive, malicious act, just like
firing a gun at someone, beating up on someone, rape, or lighting a cat’s tail on fire.

Do people raised with a computer and games
between their fingers not understand real life?
Does this mean they are mentally ill? (Not having a grip on reality is mentally ill.)
How could anyone not evil (and do NOT tell me teens can’t be evil) do such a thing?
And for those of you who don’t know, there are signs all along the trails about
fire and firecrackers and other ways fires can start.

*view from our studio window last night*

This morning the Eagle Creek fire has met the Indian Creek fire and is a force of
20,000 burning acres. At our studio an hour away (40 miles as the crow flies),
we can’t see far, and outside you can’t breathe. Falling ash.

The cops caught the kid (all of them), fleeing.
They talked to him, they had an eye witness who identified him.
They let him go. The Feds or the State Police must charge him (them).
Then there will be a trial and they should do time, the ones tossing doing the most time —
But, like bullies, those that watch are complicit.

I fell asleep early last night, and so, just after the full moon, I woke.
Middle-of-the-night I spent angst-ridden over the losses: the animals, the trees, the human casualties (we don’t know yet), the human losses in dollars, jobs, homes, buildings.